To You, Hazel Grace
by Bad Dancer
Summary: "Hazel Grace died three weeks after we got back from Amsterdam. Of course, no one saw it coming, especially me"


Hazel Grace died three weeks after we got back from Amsterdam. Of course, no one saw it coming, especially me. She had looked so strong before. She was walking whenever she could and she was always laughing, but then, nothing really works out for people like us, does it?

We had eaten our delicious dinner, gone to see that douchebag Van Houten and then had our night together and everything seemed perfect. Then she had asked her mom to give us a few minutes alone. I, of course, being the hormonal teenage boy that I am, thought this meant kissing and what-not.

I had never suspected what she was going to say next.

"Gus", she said quietly, not quite looking me in the eyes, "I got a scan a few days ago". She looked like she was trying with all her might not to cry. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, already knowing what she was going to say, but hoping with all my might that I was wrong.

"The Phalanxifor stopped working", she whispered, her voice trembling, but not yet broken. Her cheeks were red with the effort of keeping in tears and she still refused to look me in the eye.

"No", I whispered. No, this couldn't be right. Hazel Grace, _my _Hazel Grace, couldn't be dying. Not now. Not ever.

"The tumors are growing rapidly", she said with a little more conviction. She grabbed my hand, which was still resting on her shoulder. One small tear leaked down her face. It almost looked like a scene from a movie.

"Hazel Grace", I whispered, placing a hand on her cheek and making her look up at me, "It's gonna be okay"

"How?" she said, her voice cracking a little in the middle, "How is this going to be okay? I was just starting to be happy again"

I didn't know quite what to say. I didn't know how to react. I sure as hell couldn't tell her how terrified I was. No, she was more important. I raised my eyebrow and gave her that crooked smile I always give her to make her blush and said, "We will live our best lives today. Okay?"

She smiled, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and whispered, "Okay" back.

I had decided not to treat her like she was dying. It just seemed disrespectful. I didn't bring up funerals, I didn't talk about medicine or the cancer, which was made of her, that was killing her. We talked about stupid things like Counterinsurgence and the metaphorical implications of eating breakfast for dinner. We read books and played video games, but I always noticed how sick she looked.

Her skin was paler and she was skinnier. She looked almost skeletal, but she was still beautiful to me. She was still my strong, beautiful Hazel Grace.

She kept up her strength as much as she could. She acted tough and fooled everyone into thinking that she wasn't scared, including me. Her parents still wouldn't let her do things by herself anymore. They brought her food, they recorded her shows for her. Hell, they fluffed her damn pillows for her. No one could tell how much it bugged her.

At least, not until the Night of the Gas Station.

It was one twenty-three in the morning when I heard my phone ring. It was playing that song All The Stars, which reminds me of Hazel Grace. I groggily turned over and put the phone to my ear. "Hello?" I asked, my voice not quite as strong as I wish it could have been.

"Gus?" came a broken whisper over the phone. I sat bolt right up immediately, terrified already to hear Hazel sound so small.

"Hazel Grace?" I whispered back, pressing the phone closer to my ear.

"Gus, I need help", she said, her voice thick with tears, "I'm at the gas station on Elm street. There's something wrong with my G-tube. Please just come help me". Her voice broke at the end. She sounded like a little girl, crying in a corner.

"I'm on my way", I said, hanging up the phone and throwing on my leg and my shoes. I left a small note on the fridge in case my parents woke up and got worried. God knows they would freak out. Sticking the post-it onto the fridge, I ran out and drove off even more recklessly than usual. I was surprised that no cops pulled me over, but they were probably too busy with drunks leaving bars at this hour.

I pulled into the gas station parking lot and hobbled as fast as I could to Hazel Grace's car. She sat with the driver door open, tears staining her face and a broken, beaten look in her eyes. Her shirt front was covered in spit, vomit and blood. Her lips were dripping with blood as well. She barely moved when I kneeled down next to her and grabbed her arm.

"Oh, God, Hazel Grace", I panted, pulling up the side of her shirt to reveal a bright red ring around her G-tube, "That looks seriously infected. You need help"

She barely moved. She barely even whispered when she responded. "I wanted to get you cigarettes", she whispered apathetically.

"What?" I gasped, not quite sure I heard her right.

"You said you lost your pack yesterday", she said louder, tears beginning to leak from her eyes again, "I just wanted to get you cigarettes. I just wanted to do one FUCKING thing by myself". She slammed her fist into the steering wheel, squeezing her eyes shut and beginning to sob. She leaned forward and started to vomit out blood all over her shirt.

I had never seen Hazel look this broken, this shattered, this defeated. She looked like a broken angel. I knew what I had to do, even though I didn't like it.

"I'm calling 911", I said quietly, trying not to scare her. She didn't argue, she just continued to sob.

"Why?" she cried, staring up at the roof of her car, "Why are you doing this to me? Why me? WHY THE FUCK DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN TO ME?"

She began screaming, sobbing and slamming her fists into the steering wheel. I grabbed her wrists, trying to stop her from using up all her energy. I gently grabbed her and pulled her out of the car seat and down onto the ground with me. I set her down gently in my lap and put her head on my shoulder, letting her cry on it. I rubbed her back and whispered jokes and reassurances into her ear. She didn't laugh, though. She didn't poke me and argue with me about my metaphorical usage. She just cried until she fell asleep. Soon after, the ambulance came and took her away from me.

I'd like to say that Hazel Grace's last day's were good ones, but that would be a lie. She was in pain pretty much the whole time. Her parent's let me stay in her room with her. I never left her side. I never stopped holding her hand.

We joked around in that room. We had debates about the usage of historical allusions in newspapers and ate chocolate while drinking champagne. She never let on how much pain she was in, for which I'm eternally grateful. If she had cried the whole time, I would have never made it myself.

One day, I come into her room and I sit down with her and read her the eulogy that I had sent to Van Houten to proofread. I poured out my heart in my writings of how much I love her and how I am so grateful that I got to have my heart broken by her. I asked her liked her choice to take a chance on me. She had turned over on her side and stuck out her body hand. I grabbed it and noticed the happy tears in her eyes as she responded.

"I do, Gus", she said quietly, squeezing my hand, "I do"

Two days later, she died. Her lungs finally gave out. I was asleep in her room when the monitors started beeping loudly. I had screamed for nurses and doctors. They shoved me out of the room and got to work. I had paced outside the door for hours before a sad looking doctor came out. He gave me a look that said 'I'm sorry' before telling me the worst thing I have ever heard.

"She didn't make it"

"No", I whispered, not able to process it, "No. NO!" I screamed. Something I didn't even know existed inside of me snapped. White hot rage and pain ripped though me and I ran down the hall, ripping posters off the wall. I threw a chair across the waiting room, blind in my rage. I noticed a security guard start to rush towards me, but the doctor stopped him.

"Just let him do it", he whispered sadly.

I kicked the chair around with my fake leg. My FUCKING FAKE LEG!

"WHY HER?!" I screamed, running my fingers through my hair and crying, no, sobbing, "Why did it have to be her? WHY DID HAZEL GRACE HAVE TO DIE?"

No one responded, so I continued to scream and kick. I briefly thought about how children do the same thing when they loose a toy but quickly pushed that metaphor away. Hazel Grace was not a toy. She was the love of my life, and now I don't have her anymore. That piece of me is now gone, leaving me a broken piece of shit.

I continued to scream 'why' and curse God, the God I barely believed in, for doing this. How could He have taken her life? Why had He decided that it had to be her? Why did she have to leave me here all alone?

I eventually lost all energy and just collapsed on the ground and started to sob. My body racked with sobs and cries until my father picked me up and carried me to the car. He put me in my bed and closed the door behind him without a word and a sad look on his face.

That night, I cried and screamed myself to sleep.

A week later, they held Hazel Grace's funeral. I wore my death suit to it, not my funeral suit. It felt right to wear the suit I wore on our first real date to this. I bet she would have worn that blue dress from that date to my funeral if she could have. The pastor (minister, preacher, whatever the hell he was), droned on about how strong Hazel Grace was, fighting cancer and all. He talked about how strong she was and how she will always be remembered.

"And now", he said, breaking me out of my thoughts, "A few words from Hazel's special friend, Augustus Waters"

People clapped softly as I walked up and stood behind the podium.

"Not to be rude or anything, your honor", I said with a sad parody of my crooked smile, "But I was her boyfriend. Get it right"

The audience laughed, like they were in some kind of inside joke about Hazel. I shook my head and continued.

"You all say that she was strong and that she was a fighter, battling cancer most of her life", I said strongly, gripping the sides of the podium, "But she would have disagreed. She was so much more that a cancer victim, and it sincerely offends me when people refer to that as her biggest accomplishment. She was smart, she was funny, she was the love of my life"

I could feel my voice cracking and tears burning behind my eyes, but no, I would not cry now.

"I once said that I feared oblivion, that I wanted to leave my mark on the world, but Hazel Grace knew better. She knew that one day, no one will remember this. No one will remember us. She knew that the most important thing was to be loved, to impact the people who are important to us. She taught me so much. She introduced me to my favorite book. She gave me this sort of infinite hope, and in the words of a writer we both used to like, '_Some infinities are bigger than others'. _I hope Hazel Grace liked her personal infinity. I will always love mine with her, and I will be eternally grateful for the light and love she brought to me, the hope she gave, and most of all…"

I paused, almost unable to speak the next words. My throat clogged with tears as I spoke, the words I knew would forever summarize my little infinity with Hazel Grace Lancaster.

"I thank her for giving me a new definition of the word 'Okay'"

I walked back to my seat next to Isaac. Hazel's mother was starting to speak. Isaac leaned towards me and whispered, "Good speech". Isaac was too smart to say "Sorry for your loss, man" or "It's gonna be okay". No, he knew that I wouldn't have any of that, so he decided to comment on my speaking. Smart guy.

Later, after her parents had spoken and everyone was ready to go home, Isaac came up to me. He shuffled up to me and said quickly, "She really loved you, you know".

"Yeah" I whispered, hearing my voice crack, "I know"

"If you don't mind, buddy", I croaked, unable to keep the tears out of my voice, "I would really like to be alone right now". Isaac nodded and turned around slowly and made his way back towards his mother. I still couldn't comprehend that this was real. I pulled out my phone and called Hazel Grace's number, almost expecting to hear her voice. When the ringing stopped, her voice message played.

"_Hi, this is Hazel. I'm either too damn sick to answer or just avoiding your call. I figure you know that you need to leave your message at the beep already"_

I laughed, a broken, sad laugh. That was just so Hazel. She would always be so sarcastic and hilarious. Hazel would have laughed at him for calling her at her funeral. She would have called it rude. I turned off my phone and stuck it back in my pocked before turning back towards the gravesite.

I walked over to her grave. It smelled fresh, like wet dirt. I still couldn't comprehend that Hazel Grace's body, _my _Hazel Grace's body, is now buried in the ground. I dropped to my knees in front of the little gray tombstone with her full name on it. Underneath her name, it read "_Okay?"_

I still had no idea how she told her parents she wanted this on her grave, and also why the hell her parents complied, but it made me smile.

I thought back to the conversation we had over dinner in Amsterdam. How she said she didn't believe in a Something after death. I hope she was wrong. God, did I hope she was wrong, because the thought of her just being dead for all eternity was unbearable.

A small tear trickled down my cheek as I reached into my back pocket. I brought out the little pack I had gotten just before the funeral. The pack she had gotten me sat in my room, kept out of reach and safe. I slid my shaking fingers into the pack and pulled out one of the cigarettes.

I had never lit one before. I had always been so proud that I had this kind of control, but now I know that there is no control. I couldn't control my fate or Hazel Grace's. She was gone and nothing was going to bring her back.

With shaking hands, I pushed down on the lighter, put the cigarette between my lips, and lit it. I inhaled it with tears in my eyes before I uttered the most difficult words that I would ever say in my lifetime.

"This is to you, Hazel Grace. May we meet again soon"


End file.
